Different Expressions of Emotion

During my video review one of my friends was right in front of the camera and while we were reviewing the video my teacher stopped the video in the middle of a seated forward fold and asked me if she had just lost someone close to her. Initially, it caught me off guard, but as I thought about it, I realized she had just lost her cat, Buddy. He went on to say he could tell because she was collapsed in her chest and that we tend to carry grief in that area. His statement piqued my interest in this idea as well as looking at other areas where we carry our emotions within our bodies and how yoga can help.

This friend of mine he picked out on the video actually has really good standing posture, however, whenever she goes into a forward fold her shoulders slump up towards her ears and it's almost as if the rest of her body is contracting around her heart center to protect it.

I ended up telling her what my teacher said and I asked if she remembered what, if anything, was going through her mind at that moment. What's interesting (and what actually makes sense) is that she wasn't actually thinking about her loss at that point in the forward fold, but she did say he came to mind in several of the heart-opening poses we did - a restorative pose at the beginning and legs up the wall with arms in goal-post at the end. It was in these poses that her heart was most open and she was relieving the tension and emotion she'd somewhat unknowingly stored in that area.

According to Sally Kempton, "the most effective way of working with deep emotional tendencies is through sensations in the body...because the triggers that really get you reach far deeper than the discursive mind. So bringing consciousness to shadow feelings isn't just a question of insight. You begin to truly free yourself from these patterns only when you learn how to feel and release them in the body. And this is done with the tool of awareness, of consciousness itself."

In addition to our chests, we, especially women, tend to carry intense emotions - depression, anger, anxiety, and fear - in our hips. Hip opening poses have a reputation of bringing these emotions to the surface. If you think about the anatomy of that area, it makes sense. Our hips are large, mobile joints that provide stability, are surrounded by muscles, and are attached to the back, abdomen, hamstrings, quadriceps, abductors and adductors, and gluteal muscles.

When we're in a yoga class that focuses on or at least includes a lot of hip openers like Eka Pada Rajakapotasana, Anjaneyasana, or Mandukasana, we are bound to release tension - not only muscle tension, but also emotional tension - from our hips. It's completely normal for these emotions to surface during the pose, especially if you're holding it for a long period of time, or even the next day.

I remember a yin yoga class I took while I was still in Madison. Yin yoga targets connective tissue and involves holding passive poses for several minutes. This specific class also happened to focus on hip openers. I think we spent 12-15 minutes in Eka Pada Rajakapotasana. At this point, I hadn't been introduced to the idea of storing emotions in our hips, so when I felt myself on the verge of tears, I had no idea what was going on. I think my first thought was, did I hurt myself? But then I realized they weren't tears of physical pain, they were coming from a much deeper place.

It happened I wasn't the only one who experienced a release of emotion during class, a group of us lingered after and spoke with our teacher about what had happened and that's when I learned that what we all experienced was a sign that yoga was working for us. The asanas or poses do not actually create emotions; rather they help to evoke the emotions we've pushed aside and stored away.

It was that class that made me realize I had been tucking all of my emotions away and, in this case, into my hips. It also made me realize that I was ready to recognize and accept the emotions I was feeling, and I was ready to start talking to someone about them. It wasn't until this point that I was really ready and able to deal with them.

Diane Roberts, the owner of Foundation Yoga, puts it really well, '[y]oga allows you to probe your grief - to go into the pain, not run from it, and emerge somehow more whole and free - by focusing on your immediate physical as well as emotional experience. The way I tell students is that rather than trying to 'get over it' or 'work through it,' try to integrate your grief into who you are, and into your body as well. Then class becomes an exercise in self-compassion. Yoga helps you live in your body with your emotions."

Or as Lyn Prashant says, "the mind can lie, but the body can't."